Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You fell from the mountain because you were curious. There wasn't any special reason, other than that.

In the town that you live in, beneath the shadow of Mt. Ebott, there's a story about a child who traveled to the world of the monsters. It's said that long ago, the child climbed the mountain and disappeared, which is where the story should have ended. That's where it usually did. But...this child had returned.

They were cradled in the arms of a monster, dead.

Of course, the humans attacked it. They drove it back across the barrier, to the land beneath the earth where it came from. It took the child's body with it.

It happened so long ago there's nobody left alive who saw it with their own eyes, but in the middle of the town, in a park with a garden that's filled with golden flowers, there's a statue.

It depicts a monster; tall, imposing, with wicked horns and cruel eyes. Its face is twisted in a hideous snarl, baring its jagged teeth. It looks merciless, enraged, evil. It's meant to be terrifying, and it is.

But every time you stand before it, your eyes are drawn downwards to the tiny bundle clutched within the monster's claws. The child, with its hair draping limply across their plain, blunted features. It's incredibly disconcerting how much it looks like you.

The child in the statue haunts your dreams. They stand in a field of bright yellow blossoms, and beckon you toward the top of the mountain. You can see it in your window every morning when you wake up, looming over the horizon, with the image of the fallen child burned in your mind.

It's not too hard to slip away one day, when nobody's looking. Clutching a flower from the park garden in your fist, you ascend to the peak of Mt. Ebott.

There's a cave at the top, and in the cave, a hole, where sunlight dimly filters down into the darkness. You creep to the edge of the hole to peer down, and it seems like it goes on forever. It's eerie, standing above an entire world, a civilization you'll never know anything about.

And there's a feeling, a little like being pushed—or did you slip? Did someone laugh, or was it the sound of wind rushing by your ears?

It doesn't matter, because either way, you fall.

You wake up in a bed of flowers, petals bleeding sunlight underneath you. The first thing you realize is that surprisingly little hurts. The second thing you realize is that you can't remember your name.

The third thing you realize is that you're in the Underground.

You're not quite certain how to parse that fact; it seems too big to take in all at once. You breathe in the scent of flowers and stale air, tipping your head back to where far above, a glimmer of light shines down. Too far above. It makes you dizzy.

You look back to your immediate surroundings. Stone walls, stone floor, stone...hallway? A rough passageway breaks from the right side of the room.

Beyond it lies darkness...and the world of the monsters.

There's no choice but to go through it. So you do.

Chapter Text

The first friend you make in the underground is a talking flower. He is also the first person to try to kill you.

Flowey is unabashedly friendly, at first. It catches you off guard, going against everything you've been taught to expect from monsters. He welcomes you to the underground and offers you advice, which you gratefully accept.

“Friendliness pellets!” Flowey chirps, as bits of magic shaped like petals drift through the air towards you. You reach out to catch one on your fingertips, not sure what to expect next.

Malevolence, malice. Vicious, searing contempt. You remember, too late, that monsters can attack you in your very soul. You feel something inside of you crack, spiderweb fissures in your soul. The pain is bizarrely intangible and frighteningly intense all at once.

“What an idiot!” the flower crows, his friendly smile twisting into a hideous grin. “In this world, it's kill or BE killed! Why would anyone pass up an opportunity like this!?”

And then you're surrounded by a maelstrom of swirling petal-magic. You are about to die.

You're going to die? It's altogether too sudden. You feel like you're dreaming. What happens next does nothing to dispel this notion, because just as Flowey's attack is closing in, his cackle is cut off by a bolt of fire magic slamming into him from the side and he is tossed away with a yelp.

“What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth...” a voice says, as somebody steps from the shadows.

Her name, she tells you, is Toriel, and she is the caretaker of the ruins. She is tall, and obviously a monster; her white fur and goatlike features give it away instantly. But her voice is gentle, and her smile is warm, so you let her take your hand as she leads you through a crumbling doorway. She doesn't seem to mind that you're reluctant to speak, or that you don't know your own name.

The Ruins are like nothing you've ever seen before. The air is ancient, hushed and still, caught between walls of violet stone and dimly lit with magic. It's like nothing you've ever seen on the surface. Toriel fusses over you so thoroughly it leaves you at a bit of a loss as she guides you through the traps interspersed through the passages, beaming at you with an amount of pride that approaches hyperbole as you “solve” a puzzle consisting of helpfully labelled switches. At one point she props an old dummy up on its stand and encourages you to talk to it, as practice for if you are approached by another monster. You suspect that if you encounter another monster like Flowey, anything you have to say won't make a difference.

You hate using your voice. It's small and raspy and hardly sounds like anything at all, but as Toriel watches you expectantly from the doorway, you clear your throat and a few scratchy words emerge to politely enquire about the dummy's day. Toriel smiles so brightly it shines like the sun, melting all your self-consciousness away as she pats you on the head and leads you to the next room.

You do, in fact, run into a frog monster as you traverse another narrow corridor, but you barely have time to react before Toriel stands between you, giving the monster a reproachful look. It hops away hastily, and Toriel takes your hand again to lead you through the next puzzle, a floor of spikes that retract when you follow the right path.

“Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now,” she says, chewing her lip.

When you get to a long, broad hallway decorated along the sides by pillars, Toriel stops and turns to you with a concerned and apologetic expression. “I have a difficult request to ask of you,” she begins, sending a jolt of fear down your spine.

It doesn't last long. “I would like you to walk to the end of this room by yourself,” she says, as if she's sending you into an active warzone. She pauses to assess your expression, which you can only assume is nonplussed. She instructs you to turn around and count to twenty; you comply, and hear her robes rustling as she beats a hasty retreat down the hall. When you turn around, nobody is there.

The ruins seem so much larger than they did before, and quieter. The silence seems elegant, somehow. Your footsteps are swallowed up by it as you walk. You're hardly surprised, though, when you reach the end of the corridor and Toriel steps out from behind a pillar. She looks immensely proud. It seems this was some sort of test, to prove your independence.

She leaves you with a lecture to stay put, she has some business to take care of but she'll return. She also gifts you a cell phone and her number before bidding you farewell. You turn the small object over in your smaller hands, surprised despite yourself. You've seen so many strange things today that the familiar has become foreign to you. And you've never had a phone of your own before.

You wait for a few minutes, then, seized with an irrational fear of abandonment, call Toriel to check if her number works.

“You only wanted to say hello...?” she asks. You can practically hear the smile in her voice. “Well then. 'Hello'! I hope that suffices.”

You wait another five minutes, checking out the features of the phone while you wait. It's a rather basic model, and sturdy as well, as you find out when it unexpectedly begins to ring and you drop it. It bounces on the stone floor twice before you recover it and hit the “talk” button.

It's Toriel, of course. Just checking in to say that her errands are taking longer than expected. She calls again five minutes later to say that a dog has nabbed the target of her errand, which of course is not flour and why on earth would you think that. She hangs up with a reassurance that she won't be long.

Some time goes by. You sit on the cold floor and scratch patterns in the dust with your stick. The next time the phone rings, you pick up eagerly, only to be treated with the sound of heavy panting from the other side, a few sharp barks, and the sound of Toriel faintly shouting in the background, “Come back here with my cellphone!”

You decide that maybe it's better to keep moving on your own. You're beginning to feel a little nervous hanging around in the ruins by yourself anyway.

You peek out through the doorway that Toriel left from. Nobody seems to be around, but, oddly, there are piles of autumn-turned leaves piled on the floor. You look left, you look right. The air is still as ever.

The sound of crinkling leaves soon fills the hall as you bound forward into a pile of them. It reminds you of the surface, and you feel a surge of determination to get back home.

You continue on through the ruins, solving puzzles and every so often encountering the odd frog-like monster or small fairy that looks so abjectly terrified of you that it bursts into tears before you can say a single word. They seem content to let you be as long as you make it clear you don't want to fight, which is immensely relieving.

Having recovered her cellphone, Toriel calls you three times to ask, in quick succession: if you prefer butterscotch or cinnamon, if you really can't stand the one you don't prefer, and if you have any allergies. You say butterscotch, and reassure her no on both other accounts. Perhaps you should feel a little guilty for not doing as she asked, but exploring the ruins on your own is so much more interesting, and besides, you can take care of yourself.

Besides the numerous puzzles, on your way through the ruins you encounter a rock that talks, a mouse eyeing a pile of cheese half fused to a table, a spider bake sale, and a ghost pretending to be asleep. The last of these blocks your path, and, unwilling to step through them, you instead try politely asking them to move.

The ghost drifts upright, looking looking phenomenally discouraged, but not particularly threatening. It cries acid tears at you, and you step out of the way, attempting a patient smile like Toriel might do.

The ghost gives a little wobbly “heh”, and sniffles. You tell a little joke, which elicits two “hehs” from them.

“thanks for being nice....you really dont have to bother...” say the ghost. “im blook...i mean, napstablook...um...so...im sorry i attacked you....ill show you my special trick, but its not like you have to look if you dont want to....”

Napstablook's eyes fill with tears, which alarms you for a moment before you realize that all of them are flowing upwards into a nebulous shape on top of Napstablook's head that quickly forms itself into a top hat.

“do you like it...” they ask, forgoing the rising intonation on what is clearly supposed to be a question. “i call it dapper blook...”

They look at you earnestly, awaiting your response. You feel like your eyes are wide as saucers. Napstablook is beginning to look discouraged again when you burst out into applause.

“oh gee...” says Napstablook, completely taken aback. They ramble for a moment about how they usually come to the ruins to be alone, and then abruptly apologize and disappear into thin air.

The underground, you're quickly realizing, is a very strange place.

Eventually, after you stumble through several more puzzles and successfully pacify some stray monsters, you reach a house. It's a small, cozy-looking place with a tree growing out of the rock in front of it, bereft of leaves. Toriel rushes from the house, trying to call you on the phone before realizing you're standing right in front of her.

“How did you get here, my child?” Rushing over to you, bewildered, she gives you a quick once-over. She notices the scrapes on your knees and hands from the ruin puzzles and kneels in front of you, taking your hands and letting magic soothe your hurts. She chides herself for leaving you alone in the ruins, accidentally letting slip her plans to surprise you in the process. “Err...” she says, a look crossing her face like she's been caught in the act,“Well, I suppose I cannot hide it any longer...” She stands up and beckons you to follow her to the house. “Come, small one!”

Chapter Text

The house is tidy on the inside, clearly lived in but somehow still lonely. Toriel takes you by the hand and leads you to a bedroom, ruffling your hair as she tells you it's yours now. There is a child-sized bed, a chest full of toys, a closet full of clothing, and a box of shoes, all sizes.

A chill settles over your heart as you realize there must have been children here before you. But Toriel seems kind and good—so did Flowey, a treacherous voice whispers in the back of your mind. You banish the thought. If children had been here, and now they...weren't, perhaps it would explain Toriel's overprotective attitude.

You're tired, but there's still so many questions buzzing in your brain that you're not ready to rest, so you explore the house instead. Toriel is flitting about in the kitchen, taking a pie that smells like heaven out of the oven to set on the counter and fussing over her dishware. You decide not to bother her. You pick a book from the shelf in the living room at random, and discover that it's a monster history book. Flipping through the pages in amazement, you realize that the story told within it is markedly different than the version in human books.

There's a staircase across from the entryway that seems somehow ominous, and you decide not to go down there just yet, instead continuing to explore along the hallway. Bright yellow flowers stand in pots by the walls, the same kind as you landed on when you fell from the sky. There's a locked room at the end of the hallway, and in between that and your own room is what you can only assume is Toriel's.

You peer inside, not wanting to intrude, but the furnishing is sparse enough that you don't feel like you would be. The bed is large, the dresser is tall, and there's what appears to be a bucket of snails sitting by a desk in the corner. You don't bother questioning this. But something catches your eye on the desk, and before your common sense kicks in, you find yourself reading Toriel's diary.

It's full of terrible jokes and puns.

Specifically, jokes and puns relating to skeletons.

The deeper significance of this, if any, is completely lost upon you. You make an executive decision to just back away slowly and pretend you never saw a thing.

Feeling somewhat reassured, you return to the bedroom newly christened as “yours”. You sit on the edge of the bed as you think about everything that's happened, and when it comes time to stand again, you find yourself reluctant to do so. The bed is soft and warm. Surely it wouldn't hurt to just close your eyes for a moment...

When you wake up, you're tucked into the bed and a slice of butterscotch-cinnamon pie awaits you on the floor. You have no idea what time it is, but when you creep out of the room you find Toriel sitting in a chair and reading a book about snails. Looking up from her book, she sees you standing there and smiles, gesturing you closer. You approach, and, unexpectedly, she pulls you into her lap. She's soft and warm, and you can feel the hum of her voice as she begins to speak softly.

She tells you there's so much she wants to do with you. To teach, to show, to talk, to spend time with. “This may come as a surprise to you...but I have always wanted to be a teacher,” she tells you, eyes glowing with enthusiasm. You smile and nod, but she can tell you're distracted, because as soon as you open your mouth to ask, “How do I get home?”, she desperately blurts out a fact about snails.

“Isn't that interesting?” she asks you, almost pleading.

The last thing in the world you want is to break her heart, but you have to. You ask her how to leave the ruins.

The hope fades from her expression, and she looks away.“I have to do something,” she tells you, putting aside her book. “Stay here.”

She walks purposefully out of the room, breezing by you without so much as a glance. Through the hallway, down the stairs across from the entryway. You follow.

Toriel speaks to you without looking as you drift along silently behind her, telling you that she plans to destroy the exit of the ruins. She tells you of the humans who came here before in short, clipped sentences: all of them left. All of them died. She tells you there's no escape from this place. She tells you you will surely die.

Be good and go to your room, she says. You follow her and don't reply.

When Toriel reaches a door at the end of the twisting, narrow corridor, she stops. “Do not try to stop me,” she says severely. “This is your final warning.”

You're still there when she turns to face you, and she doesn't look surprised. There's a grim set to her face as she moves to block you from the door, magic blazing at her fingers. “Fine then,” she says, poorly hiding her anguish behind anger, “Prove yourself...prove to me that you are strong enough to survive!”

And then you're fighting. You don't want to fight, and you try to tell her that, but your voice won't come. She stares right through you as she hurls flames with a ferocity that frightens you, and it takes everything you have to stay out of the way.

You don't want to hurt her. But a bolt of fire magic slams into your chest when you hesitate, it burns, amd you realize that this is serious, she really means it. There's an ache in your chest when you force yourself to accept it, but there's nothing else to be done.

For the first time since entering the underground, you fight back.

Gripping the handle of a plastic knife you found in the ruins, you leap out of the way of Toriel's attack and come out swinging. She gracefully steps back and drives you away with another onslaught of flame. It continues like this for a while, with you unable to land a solid hit and Toriel slowly chipping away at your soul, neither side giving any quarter.

You weren't expecting Toriel to be so powerful. You hit your head on a rock as you get slammed to the floor by her attack, and rise to your feet to find it bleeding. You can't go on like this. Determination wells up inside you, and you find the energy to rush her one last time, putting everything you have left into one final strike.

She raises her hands, fire flaring to life in her palms—

You raise the knife, aimed straight and true—

She sees the blood on your face; the flames flicker and die as her face goes blank with horror. Triumph floods your senses, primal and vicious, as you drive the knife forward with a force that shocks you.

...You weren't expecting Toriel to be so vulnerable.

Chapter Text

Monsters turn to powder when they die. You read it in a book once. It doesn't happen all at once. The book didn't tell you that part.

Toriel is not angry. “You are stronger than I thought...” she says, form already wavering. She warns you of the world outside, of someone called Asgore. Tells you to walk out the door and keep walking, never stop until you find the exit.

Then she smiles at you and gently cups your face in her hands, as if she fears you might break. You're not entirely sure you won't.

“...Be good, won't you? My child...”

And she's gone.

You're not sure how long you sit there on the floor among her scattered remains. Time loses its meaning there in the narrow room with the door, as you kneel on the cold stone, consumed by numbness.

You killed her.

You didn't mean to—but it doesn't matter. The feeling that consumed you when you struck the final blow...it felt so alien, like something unknown living beneath your skin rose to the surface. But there's nobody else but you. You did this. The plastic knife hangs from your nerveless hand, flecks of dust sticking to the blade, and it hangs there still as you rise to your feet, not sure where you're going and not caring in the slightest.

Your feet take you upstairs, to the bedroom. Your body, hurt and exhausted, collapses face-down on the bed. You can't care enough to arrange yourself into a more comfortable position. Nothing seems to matter; all your thoughts sputter and die half-formed.

You wish it hadn't happened. You wish Toriel had listened to you, you wish you hadn't fought, you wish you pulled away in time, you wish you did as you were told, you wish her flames had consumed you. You wish and wish and wish and wish, but it all amounts to nothing, and eventually your eyes close on their own.

You dream a dream that feels more like a memory, where a voice you have never heard before calls you by a name you don't know.

When you wake up, the room smells like butterscotch pie, and there's a blanket tucked around you.

Confusion suffocates any other feeling you might have felt. Was somebody else here? How? Why? As the dizzying wave of incomprehension fades, a new thought begins to form, small and fragile and tempered with disbelief: hope.

Could it have been a dream?

You tiptoe from the bedroom, hardly daring to hold onto that thought as you approach the room where Toriel should be, heart skipping a beat as you enter.

She's sitting in her chair, reading her book, like nothing is wrong. When she senses your arrival, she looks up and smiles. It doesn't seem fair, that she should smile at you like that, but the wave of relief it causes you is overwhelming.

You must be crying, because Toriel immediately abandons her chair to sweep you up in her arms, murmuring condolences.

“Oh, small one, did you have a bad dream?” she asks, hugging you tightly to her. She's so warm and kind that it hurts, and all you can do is nod mutely.

She returns to the chair, settling you on her lap and making soothing sounds as she pats you on the back while you continue to cry. She's babying you, but you want to be babied, to be reassured by her kindness and warmth, and above all, her continued existence.

Eventually your tears subside, but Toriel lets you stay where you are as she picks up her book and reads to you softly, until you know more about snails than you ever cared to know.

It had to have been a dream. There's no other way. You're beginning to drift off to sleep again, comforted by the thought, when you whisper something sleepily about how you'll miss this after you go home.

Toriel goes still underneath you. Slowly and quietly she puts her book down, shifts you gently aside as she stands.

“Stay here,” she says, “There's something I must do.”

The words jolt you awake. They're too familiar. Toriel goes into the hall and down the stairs, and drawn by some morbid compulsion, you follow her.

She says the same words as she did before. You say nothing. She leads you down the same hallway, the same door, issues the same ultimatum. A terrible sensation starts crawling up your back.

It's the same as before. But this time, as she blocks your path, Toriel's grave expression flickers for a moment.

“...Wait. Why are you looking at me like that? Like you have seen a ghost.”

You want to tell her that you saw her die. Here, in this room, by your hand. But...wouldn't that be too strange? Wouldn't that make it too real? You stand in front of her, uncertainty rooting you to the floor, as once again flames leap from her hands towards you. At the last second you jump out of the way. Toriel seems significantly less conflicted than you, with the same steely expression as she wore last time.

The plastic knife stays in your bag; just thinking about it makes you feel ill. Your hands remain empty this time, dangling uselessly at your sides as Toriel assaults you relentlessly, magic searing your soul on contact. You try to convey, through strength of soul alone, that you have no wish to do battle.

Toriel's fire whirls around you, more fiercely than before. “What are you doing?” she demands, an edge to her voice that wasn't there before.

I don't want to fight.

“Attack or run away!”

I don't want to fight.

“What are you proving this way...?

You calmly stand and face her, unflinching. I don't want to fight.

“Stop! Stop looking at me that way! Go away!”

You stop directly in front of her as she launches a barrage of summoned flame at you, dropping your arms to your sides and closing your eyes.

I don't want to fight!

The attack parts like river water, washing around you harmlessly. When it stops you open your eyes, and Toriel is looking at you with tears in her eyes.

“I know you want to go home, but...please, go upstairs now.” She smiles at you, expression wavering. “I promise I would take good care of you. I know we do not have much, but...we can have a good life here.”

Toriel's kindness overwhelms you, so that you have to remind yourself why you can't. This isn't your world. You don't belong here, trapped beneath the earth, in a land whose inhabitants thirst for your blood. There's no home for you in this place, and there could never be.

Toriel's tiny smile wavers as she sees the answer in your expression, and she gives a short, defeated laugh. “...Ha. Ha....Pathetic, is it not? I cannot save even a single child.”

You shake your head and approach her, lifting your small hand to her large, furry one. Toriel sighs deeply.

“...No, I understand. You would just be unhappy trapped down here. The ruins are very small once you get used to them...it would not be right for you to grow up in a place like this.” A gentle expression spreads across her face, and she strokes your hair fondly. “My expectations, my loneliness, my fear...for you, my child, I will put them aside.

She steps back, away from the door, whole and unhurt. You're giddy with relief, but...

You suddenly realize that there's tears in your eyes. It's so soon, too soon. You've spent no more than a day in the ruins, and already it feels like home. The thought of staying just for another night, another slice of pie, a few more pages from Toriel's book, is tantalizing. But if you stay, will you ever leave? Wouldn't it just be too easy? It's so tempting it scares you—but it could never last. You have to leave, now, before this kindness gets taken away from you.

Toriel holds out her arms to you. You rush forward into her embrace, soaking up her warmth and trying to find your courage in it.

“Child,” she murmurs to you sadly. “If you truly wish to leave the ruins, I will not stop you. However, if you leave through that door...please do not come back. I hope you understand.”

You nod against her shoulder, dreading the moment when the hug will inevitably end. After what feels like an eternity that could never be long enough, she lets go, and stands. She ruffles your hair and smiles a tiny smile as you step up to the door, calling a goodbye after you.

As you pass through it, you look behind you only once. Toriel is standing there, one hand raised halfway through a wave, looking oddly small and forlorn. Then the stone doors slam shut, and she's lost from view.

The passageway in front of you seems empty and much too large, but there's no choice but to continue down it.

Chapter Text

The hallway seems to go on forever. The only sound present is the scuffing of your feet against the stone floor. You aren’t sure how long you’ve been walking for, now—thirty minutes, perhaps more. At last you feel a draft coming from somewhere up ahead, and the weary rhythm of your feet picks up as you head for the exit.

Turning a corner, you see an open doorway, beyond which appears to be blackness. You carefully approach, sidling along the wall as you get closer to peek inside. The room is dark, unlike the rest of the ruins. And in the middle of it is a single patch of light, illuminating—

“Clever. Veeeerry clever,” says a terribly familiar voice. “In this world, it’s kill or be killed! But you managed to play by your rules. You saved the life of a single person.”

Flowey. He sprouts from a patch of earth in the floor, leering at you with his falsely friendly smile. You’re wary of him now, remembering your last encounter, so you hang back in the doorway.

“But don't act so cocky,” he continues, narrowing his eyes, and then his smile turns sly as he tilts his head to the side, and his next words are like ice, striking you with such a searing chill that they embed themselves into your soul and stick.

“I know what you did,” Flowey says. “You murdered her. And then you went back, because you regretted it.”

It hadn’t happened. It wasn’t real, it was a dream, you never did that, you would never—

How did he know? Nobody was supposed to know, nobody could possibly know....

He laughs at the face you're making for a good long minute before abruptly his face sharpens into a snarl. “You naive idiot. Did you think you were the only one with that power? The power to reshape the world...purely by you own determination. The ability to play god! The ability to “save”. I thought I was the only one with that power.”

He's looking away now, like he's not even talking to you anymore. The words seep into you like swampwater; bitter, tainted, crawling with unfathomable filth.

It happened. It was real. You’d done it, whether or not you wanted to.

You killed Toriel, and reset the world.

You feel sick to your stomach, dizzy with the knowledge of it. Flowey's gaze shifts to you again, oddly contemplative now. “But...I can't save anymore. Apparently YOUR desires for this world override MINE.” He grins, a horrible, rotted expression, like death itself. “Well, well. Enjoy that power while you can. I'll be watching.”

Then he laughs, and disappears, and even though the chamber is empty you can still hear his laughter echoing.

The only thing remaining in the room is the overpowering fear that suddenly fills it, an impenetrable barrier you cannot cross. It eats at you like poison, filling your lungs, choking your heart.

You are an imposter.

You murdered Toriel, then went back and pretended it never happened.

You close your eyes and cover your ears, crouched on the floor, but in the darkness behind your eyes all you see is Flowey, grinning at you with a face sly and knowing, and filled with contempt.

"I know what you did."

It’s a long, long time before you’re able to cross the room and continue on.

Past the room filled with darkness, you find that the corridor ends rather abruptly in a pair of massive stone doors. You place a hand on one and feel a chill radiating from beyond, causing you to hesitate. What kind of place lies behind this door? Will there be more people like Flowey, or like Toriel? What is the underground like outside these ruins?

You could turn back now. It’s your last chance.

But instead you curl your small fingers into your palms and summon up all of your determination as you push the doors as hard as you can.

They begin to creak open, and beyond them, another world awaits.